Rabbi Jim: Still Learning

In the first year of COVID, organizational leaders were engaged in a three-sided intellectual tug of war between understanding, interpreting, and predicting. The first two items were crucial as Rabbis, educators and executive directors were called upon to make immediate and practical decisions for their communities.  The needs of “today, tomorrow, and next week” took precedence over long-term predictions or scenario planning. Others, however, took up the slack in the prediction department. Rather than following a line of reasoning that extends from “what is” to “what might be,” many blog posts were filled with dramatic pronouncements.  Three of the most common claims looked like this:  Nothing will ever be the same!   It’s the end of [fill in the blank] AS WE KNOW IT!   We need to create an entirely new [fill in the blank]! We are now entering a phase in which things are beginning to “bounce back.” While some things have clearly changed, and will conti...

In a season 6 episode of the TV show M*A*S*H ( Tea and Empathy ) a British officer (Major Ross) visits his wounded soldiers in the hospital, telling them they are needed back in the war. He loudly criticizes the doctors for “molly-coddling” his men, and insists they are ready to get back to the fighting. Later in the episode he returns and the doctors see him listening while his smiling soldiers read letters from home. When asked about his change in approach, Major Ross explains:   “If I come in here breathing fire they realize they’re going to be all right….my men know I wouldn’t shout at them unless they knew I expected them to get well.   They believed it because I believed it.” Before COVID, schools addressed classroom management issues using a variety of approaches, based on their understanding of children and how they function in school settings. Whether it was the way classroom culture and learning were constructed, or by understanding individual student strengths, le...